Fatal Promotion: How VCs and Journalists May Be Killing Entrepreneurs

I was saddened and captivated by Alexis Tsotsis’s recent, poignant TechCrunch post discussing the suicide of Ecomom founder Jody Sherman, a post that placed this tragedy within the context of startup hype and startup pressures. While we don’t know (and may never know) what caused Sherman to end his life, it’s hard to imagine what Tsotsis describes as the “cult of startup success” didn’t play a significant role.

Founders are drawn to startups with promises of profound actualization (entrepreneurs authentically pursuing their passion), glory (entrepreneur as hero), money (entrepreneur as mogul), and service to the world (entrepreneurs making “dent in the universe”).

When you think about it, these are remarkably similar to what draws many intrepid young men and women to military service, and once there, to volunteer for dangerous missions (and I write this as an acknowledged mere observer, having to this point lacked the courage, if that’s the word, to pursue either).

The point isn’t to suggest an equivalence between making a new app and service to one’s country, but rather to think about the incentives and mindset leading to participating in select high-risk activities.

In both cases, there’s obviously far more emphasis on the upside than the risk, not just from the relevant recruiters (whether VCs or military leaders) but also in the cultural narrative. We view – I view – entrepreneurs and military volunteers as heroes, willing to dedicate their lives to the passionate pursuit of a cause.

At the same time, I worry that the asymmetry and distance between expectation and reality may also draw many vulnerable people, especially the young and in some sense the desperate, people who may not quite appreciate what they’re getting themselves into, and may fail to recognize just how unlikely it is that their choices will result in the outcomes they envision.

To the extent that all of us exacerbate the extreme selection bias – we constantly discuss, elevate, share, and lionize the rare, brilliant successes, and ignore the far more common outcomes — we all contribute. However, I suspect both investors and journalists bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility here.

As I discussed in a recent post about an example of this in digital health, in the context of startups, it’s difficult not to see investors as especially complicit, as they arguably benefit the most from perpetuating the hero mythology, and from encouraging as many impressionable young minds as possible to charge up the hill; it increases the odds that at least someone will make it, and the objective will be achieved (too bad about the causalities along the way).

Since, like most military leaders, most VCs are battle-tested (generally former entrepreneurs, usually highly successful), it’s perhaps not surprising that most genuinely seem to believe in the system, and in particular, appear to believe the current system, while perhaps imperfect, has a way of identifying and justly rewarding the smart, the persistent, the noble, the deserving.

Yet, I’d argue that at some level, both senior military leaders and experienced VCs also have (or develop) a remarkably clear understanding of the realities on the ground – they review the cold hard numbers every day. Their challenge going forward is finding a way to continue to encourage the “irrationally exuberant,” “all-in” pursuit that success requires while also finding a way – a much better way — to prepare participants for the difficult realities most will likely experience.

Journalists also must commit to far better coverage of the startup space.

Today, the reporters and bloggers (and I’m sure I’m as culpable as anyone) who write about startups seem very much like the journalists who used to cover World War II – they identify so closely with the importance of the mission that they become more like cheerleaders than the critical (some might say excessively critical) journalists of the post-Vietnam era.

As a tribute to the memory of Jody Sherman and other entrepreneurs like him, and to hopefully reduce the need for such tributes in the future, reporters and bloggers writing about the startup community should commit to balancing the celebration of outsized entrepreneurial success with greater emphasis on the realities of the battlefield, with a particular emphasis on those who return battered and wounded, as well as those who don’t return at all.

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I think it is terribly sad when anyone commits suicide. It may be cliche, but the saying that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem was proven once again. But I doubt very seriously if Jody Sherman committed suicide because of what someone – anyone – else did. He lost hope. Perception is reality for the person perceiving and he did not believe that he could bear any longer what he was perceiving. Never mind that his perceptions were wrong and that he was believing a lie and he had lost control of his emotions.

True entrepreneurs, successful or not, have, whether they are aware of it or not, control over their emotions. They do not get taken down by setbacks and they won’t get overly excited with success. And they aren’t emotional about their money.

They are focused on succeeding, not failing. They know that success does not come through avoiding failure. It comes through pursuing success.

They are real survivors. I’ve said it many times about myself, “The day after life as I knew it was supposed to come to an end, I found that I was still breathing in and out.”

Perhaps Jody Sherman was trying to be an entrepreneur, but he just wasn’t one. I don’t believe that a true entrepreneur would or even could ever commit suicide.

But I do believe that VCs and journalists are both destructive to entrepreneurs: The VC because he tempts the entrepreneur with money and if he (the VC) is successful will take control and lead the entrepreneur’s enterprise in a direction that is self serving and that will destroy the entrepreneur’s vision; The journalist because he exposes what he can of what the entrepreneur is doing, not realizing or caring that, in doing so, he is strengthening those that would oppose the entrepreneur.

Because he is focused on success, the wise entrepreneur lets neither the journalist nor the VC into his world.

Absolutely, I agree that we focus far too much on the successes. With my personal narrative, I see the difference between a more conservative subject like medicine which is more focused on learning from errors and an aggressive subject like business that seems to lay a lot more emphasis on only the success stories. A balance between the two is what may be required. My two cents…